Text Answers Submitted
ACRL Distance Learning Section
Membership Survey, 2005
5. What are the major challenges you face in your job?
All answers were manually typed as text by the respondents. The following chart is a summary of those responses, grouped into categories.
Response Category / Number responding / % of respondentsOutreach/Marketing to Students / 54 / 23%
Time & Time Management / 44 / 19%
Budget/Funding / 42 / 18%
Outreach/Marketing to Faculty / 40 / 17%
Instruction and Information Literacy / 32 / 14%
Cooperation with Non-Library Offices (IT, Distance Learning, Administration) / 27 / 11%
Staffing / 24 / 10%
Information Technology Support (including authentication issues, database problems) / 23 / 10%
Managing Technological Change (keeping up with new products, maintaining sites) / 21 / 9%
Lack of Recognition and Support for Distance Learning / 18 / 8%
Other / 99 / 42%
Total # responding to this question / 237
Answers submitted for Question 5
1. Coordinating with the registrar's office and IT department so that students can have proper identification & account information to access our services2. Copyright!!!
1. Keeping up with database infrastructure changes;
2. Time management- working with students on their time and dealing with Librarian/management issues
1. not enough staff
2. institutional admin that characterizes the library as 'anachronistic'
3. not enough staff
4. lack of information literacy standards
5. not enough staff
1. Understanding what library services make a difference for distance learners.
2. Wondering how best to reach distance learners to inform them about services.
3. Wondering how the library can receive 'credit' for its contribution to the university's distance education program.
4. Finding effective ways to work with faculty who are instructing in distance education programs.
5. Capturing the imagination of librarians to be innovative and creative in developing a distance education program.
6. Developing approaches and delivering actual services when mostly people want to talk about budget and how many librarians are working in distance education librarianship -- delivering library education is not the key service the distance learner wants.
A chancellor who says he is a futurist and had told my immediate superior that libraries are a thing of the past and concomitant budget cuts. A first generation college student body, many of whom do not have computers-- increased need for hands-on help and coaching being done by the library staff. Need for more staff as a result.
Adequate support for technology
An administration that is more concerned about the bottom line than about students' needs and sees nothing wrong with sending them off to other libraries.
An ever increasing off campus program and the financial resources are not there to provide all of the materials we need.
Assessing needs and service gaps. Communicating effectively with students and faculty
Assessing needs of students and faculty, marketing library services to former, providing instruction and networking with distance education students and faculty while dealing with diverse schedules and distance.
At my 'campus center', I serve students from four different universities within the university 'system'. Because the university libraries do not purchase electronic resources together, I deal with four different sets of electronic resources. Almost everything I do for or with students depends on their 'home institution' -- and they all do EVERYTHING differently.
Balancing a mix of responsibilities
Balancing the demands of different 'hats' - Web design, reference/instruction on Main Campus, and service to Distance students.
Balancing the needs and sometimes divergent philosophies of two library services serving on-campus and off-campus within the same institution.
Balancing the needs of 4 extended sites with the needs of Internet students.
Being everywhere needed.
Being informed of the new programs that are begun within campus academic units; Deans tend to forget that the Library needs to be involved or has a role in supporting distance learners
Being the only professional librarian employed by the college.
Being visible to distant students and faculty
Bibliographic Instruction for those distance students.
Boredom
Budget concerns- our university treats distance students as a free income and doesn't see a need to increase the library funds accordingly to supply resources/staff.
Budget cuts. Communicating library services to distant students and faculty
Budget cuts. Communicating our library services to faculty, staff and students. Delivering materials on time to our students
Challenges related to distance education? Funding occurs on an ad hoc (or as available) basis rather than systematically through operations budget.
Communicating effectively with DL students all over the world, some of whom are in war zones.
Communicating with part-time faculty; lack of computer facilities off campus; technical problems with library-licensed databases
Communication with adjunct professors; funding
Communication with distance learners; being able to reach them and get them to respond in a timely fashion. Providing access to an adequate book resources. We are trying to increase the amount of e-books. Providing articles and dealing with copyright clearance to distribute an article to 100+ distance ed students.
communication with distance program administrator.
Communication with students and faculty.
Communication with students. Getting materials to them. Orientations.
Communications. Delivery of materials.
Competition / non-cooperation from IT department. Unrealistic expectations from end-users. Vendors who do not support their products appropriately.
connecting with faculty that change each semester, making sure they know library services & instruction are available at the off-campus sites
Connecting.
Constrained resources - financial, staff
Continuous updating of resources. Maintaining all web postings. Being the sole librarian at a distance ed only institution.
Convincing administration that service to distance students should be a priority.
Convincing administrators of the value of face-to-face instruction
Cooperation of distance learning units outside the library
Coordinating the need for the resources with the supply, and authenticating distance students
Dealing with copyright issues, especially for electronic reserve marketing library resources and services (especially instruction)
Dealing with decreasing funding and staffing for reference services.
declining budgets;
Delivering library instruction and information literacy instruction for distance students.
designing an information literacy course for distance learners. Fall 05 will be the first time this is done. We will be offering one class as a learning community with English 1A and another stand-alone IL class.
Designing curricula & assignments that integrate interactions between professor & students (and among students) but also allow students to work at own pace/style.
Developing consortia-based services for distance ed. (Live Help reference, e-collections, e-reserves, o-tutorials)
Distance has many meanings (remote access from dorms to students in other countries). It is difficult to determine how to parse these populations in terms of the services needed and the delivery options.
Educating administration about an academic library in the 21st century. And funding.
Educating distance learning students about library services.
Educating faculty, staff, students and administrators about the pros and cons of distance learning. Why it is not for everyone.
Educating our students (and faculty) how our online databases differ from Google and encouraging them to use them. Getting the word out to full & part-time faculty about library resources.
Encouraging students to look beyond the first page of Google for searches
Encouraging the library administration to be proactive in developing library programs
Enhancing outreach librarianship, collections and library services
Enough resources
Enough time to complete activities. Making distance learning faculty aware of library services and that they are available outside of the 4 walls of the library.
Establishing electronic access to resources - making sure things are available for all students. Getting material to students in a timely fashion when it is not available online.
Explaining to students which unit to contact for which services. Rising to the occasion with long staffing hours, workshops, etc. when the distance education students come to campus once a semester, and during the summer 'boot camp' orientation week. Getting librarians in other units to remember the needs of distance ed students and faculty (since distance ed is not very big here).
Faculty who don't feel that library services are necessary in Independent Study courses. Open entry, open exit courses, making instruction and communication difficult.
Finding a convenient way to deliver and to have returned books.
Finding enough time to answer all the incoming requests with the current staffing level
Finding enough time to get everything done, especially research.
Finding resources (i.e. personnel, budget) to support distance learning activities.
Finding the time to get everything done. In the days of doing more with less, we are always asked to do more with no additional staff. The illusion is that with technology, you will have more time for additional projects. The problem is that keeping the technology up and running smoothly does takes time.
Finding time to dedicate to DL job functions, like creating portfolios and planning synchronous online class sessions. I'm looking at Macromedia Breeze, hoping that it can support real-time meetings with use of voice-over IP and video. Don't know if the library will fund it, though. Maybe the larger university technology committee will recommend it for overall DL. I also find it frustrating that DL courses do not seem to be offered from a centralized office. Another challenge ensues when I'm asked to drive to satellite campuses vs. teaching online. It gets a bit confusing, because I'm technically an ed tech librarian, not an outreach librarian. Looking into getting on board with e-portfolios and embedding more library features into online courses, but time is short. Overall, it's enjoyable.
Finding time to devote to distance ed projects. Lack of support from other librarians for new projects.
Finding time to do everything well
Funding
Funding and technology
Funding for resources. Disconnect between library resources and course websites. Librarian not being part of instructional design team for online courses.
Funding for services that I think we need such as virtual reference, or direct to the doorstep delivery of materials for students as disadvantaged by time as by distance. Funding / staff shortfalls also meant that we were slow getting things like authentication in place, but many of the technological fixes either have been implemented or are about to be implemented.
Funding, administrative procedures (outside of the library)
Funding, Determining new and innovative services, Information Literacy, Instruction, Developing tutorials
Get students signed up through regular campus channels so they can access library services.
Getting accurate timely feedback from distance learners.
Getting all the players to talk to one another. Communications.
Getting cooperation from the academic centers.
Getting distance students to use our resources-- so marketing, teaching, etc. Also, getting buy-in to add library information to DE classes and in WebCT.
Getting everything done and trying to improve services
Getting faculty to use library instruction via distance learning like they do for on-campus courses. Getting librarians to try videoconference library instruction.
Getting faculty, staff, and my fellow administrators to realize that higher education is not the same model it was when they came through and that it will change even more radically in the future
Getting in touch with distance students.
Getting information to students and letting them know we are here
Getting more students to realize that the library can help them with their research
Getting my library to realize we need to publicize our DE services
Getting students to know about our e books and virtual reference.
Getting the best possible data about our DE students.
Getting the separate distance ed faculty to acknowledge that their students need information about the services available to remote students.
Getting the word out to distance learners that they can use our services. Getting the faculty who teach to distance learners to mention the library in class. Getting the public library in other areas to help our distance learners.
Having DL be one of many responsibilities that I have. I don't feel I have enough time to focus on this aspect, also we don't have additional funds to carry out any ideas we do have.
Having several areas that I am 'in charge' of; working in a non-collaborative environment; limited budget; no clerical support staff
Having so many varied duties and not having a focus. I am a reference librarian, an instruction librarian and the distance education liaison.
Having too many passwords for your distance students to use. We need a proxy server.
Helping faculty members understand the value of integrating library resources and services into their instruction.
Helping some library employees to recognize that library services must change as needs and expectations of students, faculty change; anticipating new skills needed by library employees, defining competencies, finding training as appropriate
How best to deliver library instruction to users who may never set foot in our library.
How to integrate electronic resources into the collection without short changing the printed collection.
I have just recently started in this position. I haven't even met the distance librarian yet. However, I will be responsible for ensuring instruction needs are met for the distance learning students (primarily at another site about 30 miles away).
I have to travel to several off-campus sites to deliver bibliographic instructions (BIs), and some of them are hard to find. The Adult and Continuing Education (ACE) School forgets to tell the library or me that a new site opened. Sometimes, I have 2 requests of BIs on the same day and time. Distance students are frustrated that there is no librarian in the site to help them, and the academic advisors and professors are not able to help them.
I teach online, so it's a challenge to provide an atmosphere of interaction among the members of the class.
I think the biggest challenge is making sure faculty and students know about our services and know what we can do for them. Marketing is part of it but relationship building is, I think, more important.
I think the major one is finding something that works for our students. They don't seem to retain what they learn from asynchronous tutorials so I've been working on online synchronous orientations and workshops, with accompanying assignments called Sources Consulted, but these are very labor intensive. They seem to work much better than tutorials though, although my data is rudimentary. And then there is finding enough time in my day to do everything, the distance learning support is on top of my other duties, and seems to have just happened rather than being planned for.